Councilman: Reward Horry County workers for cutting wasteful spending

A program that would reward Horry County government employees with bonuses for finding and eliminating wasteful spending will be on county officials’ agendas when they discuss their budget next month.

The proposal comes from County Councilman Tyler Servant, who contends the county’s 2,100 workers are in a better position than council members to find inefficiencies in government and he wants to give them an incentive to do so.

“This is what the private sector does,” he said. “In my family business, if an employee finds waste, they get a pay increase or a promotion. And I believe that’s the same way that the government should run.”

Under Servant’s plan, employees would submit budget savings ideas. A five-member committee appointed by County Council would review the submissions and make recommendations to the council’s Administration Committee, which would have the option of forwarding the plans to the full council.

Once a quantifiable savings is achieved, the employee would be rewarded with a one-time bonus of 25 percent of the annual savings up to $50,000. That employee’s supervisor would also receive a bonus worth 10 percent of the savings up to $25,000.

“It makes it easy for employees to find waste,” Servant said. “Whether you’re in the finance department or whether you’re driving and picking up trash along our roadways, this allows employees that are actually doing the job to find the waste [spending].”

The councilman’s proposal arrives as costs for employee health insurance and other benefits continue to rise.

“It’s going to be extremely important for this council to identify waste within our budget,” Servant said. “As we all know, it’s extremely difficult for us to sit behind the dais or at this conference table and to go through our budget and to find waste.”

Despite Servant’s optimism, some of his peers have raised questions about how to implement such a program.

“I’m all for getting rid of waste,” said councilman Gary Loftus. “I’m just curious as to what metrics we would use to measure what an employee has done. What objective criteria are there? ‘Cause I can see one employee saying, ‘Well, I did better than that but she got more?’ … Philosophically, I’m all for it. I’m just wondering how we implement it. That’s my concern.”

Councilman Harold Worley voted against the plan when it Servant pitched it to the council’s Administration Committee on Jan. 28. Worley said high performing employees should receive a raise or a promotion through normal channels. Council members, he said, are tasked with finding inefficiencies and making tough budget decisions.

“That is our job,” he said.

County Administrator Chris Eldridge also pointed out that an employee’s ability to find meaningful savings is often tied to that worker’s job.

For example, he said, the county’s finance director could make a case that he deserves a bonus for refinancing a bond because the process saves the county money.

“There’s a lot of things we’ve done that you could hit that $50,000,” Eldridge said. “You could argue it.”

Servant maintains the five-member panel of county officials and citizens would determine whether a proposal has merit. He said any task that is part of an employee’s regular responsibilities shouldn’t be considered for a bonus.

“It’s not going to come from an everyday routine like refinancing a bond,” he said. “Just doing your normal job duties is not creating efficiencies.”

Despite some of the criticism from council members, chairman Mark Lazarus praised Servant’s proposal.

“It’s a good plan,” he said. “We have a few questions that I think we can resolve.”

Servant had planned for the full council to discuss the bonus program on Tuesday, but leaders opted to hold off until their budget workshop on March 8.

“Is it perfect?” Servant said. “It’s probably not perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

This story was originally published February 11, 2016 at 2:06 PM with the headline "Councilman: Reward Horry County workers for cutting wasteful spending."